leaving on a jet plane

so this is pretty much the longest post ever but there was so much about our trip to washington dc that i want to share!

friday, october 16th was the big day! as soon as curtis got out of school we were ready to go! our flight didn't leave until 10:50 p.m. vegas time which was really late for us but luckily mason slept most of the way to the airport so he was in a good mood when we arrived there. he enjoyed chatting to all the people and watching the slot machines across from our departing gate :)

we arrived in washington dc around 6:00, got ready for the day, then off we went on our adventure! after checking into our hotel in downtown dc we walked over to the washington monument and as you can see it was cold, wet and miserable! we pulled out coats, beanies, gloves, umbrellas, and wrapped mason up in a blanket in his dad's coat. he seemed nice and toasty and eventually fell asleep. we rode an elevator to the top of the monument and the view was awesome!

we then crossed the street to the world war II memorial. the day we were there they had some kind of ceremony with a ton of WW II veterans. talk about pulling at your heart strings.

these next couple pictures are from a little site where they had all the signers of the declaration of independence.

next stop: vietnam memorial. this was probably one of my favorite places. there was a volunteer that told about the whole story of the wall. it was so touching, it pretty much made everyone in the audience cry. wow. i can't even tell you about the descriptions he gave us because i just couldn't do it any justice.





after the vietnam wall and its surrounding memorial statues we went to the lincoln memorial.

this is the korean war memorial





the white house! we didn't get a lot of pictures here because just as we arrived they closed the sidewalk. yep, closed the sidewalk! and trust me, they are persistent! the police practically chased us away :)


this is the view down the street from our hotel

we also visited the holocaust museum on this day but didn't get any pictures. i was going to scan in the identification cards that they gave us but they got lost somewhere in the rush of things. what they do here is give you a card with all the info of a person who lived during this time. in the end you find out if they live or die. mine was a 13 year old jewish girl who died upon arrival at the auschwitz concentration camp. they also had clothing from camp prisoners, bunks from auschwitz, photos, videos and a ton of other things that really bring the holocaust to life. it made me sick to see all of this. i just wanted to reach out and somehow let these people know i was so sorry for what happened to them.

arlington cemetery
this is the changing of the guards at the tomb of the unknown solider. someone is always guarding the site and we got there just in time to watch them change the guards and the wreath that sits in front of it.

jfk and jackie o's gravesite

our last full day was spent wandering around a couple of the smithsonian museums. our first one was the museum of natural history

this is the infamous hope diamond...not really as impressive as i had hoped

they had this really cool exhibit at the museum that was called written in stone. they had a ton of skeletons including quite a few human ones, some dating back as early as the 1700's.

after the museum of natural history we headed next door to the museum of american history

these are steel beams from the 70th floor of the world trade center. in the bottom display case is an air phone from one of the planes and id badges from the pentagon.

on tuesday our flight home didn't leave until 2 p.m. so we went to the air and space museum to kill a little time.

this is the enola gay which is the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on hiroshima, japan and ended WW II

the plane from the movie "top gun"

the space shuttle "enterprise"

the wright brothers plane. we actually got to fly a simulator of this plane and it was pretty tricky. you only had two controls, one to go up and down and one to go left and right and you had to make sure to move them just the right amount.

although the weather was terrible our first day and there were a few other mishaps, we had a great time! there was a lot that we didn't get to see but there was also a lot that we did get to see and we are so grateful to curtis' parents for taking us! thanks tony and steph!